2. About the Program and THREE STEPS for readiness

A little about the program for those who are unsure.   To meet their economic needs, Canada has an Express Entry path for skilled workers to immigrate under three programs as a permanent resident:

Federal Skilled Workers Program (FSW) 
Federal Skilled Trades Program (FST) 
Canadian Experience Class (CEC)

Each program has minimum requirements for eligibility.  If you meet the requirements for any one of them, you may apply for Canadian PR via Express Entry.  Click on each of the programs to evaluate whether you qualify under that program or not. 

Therefore, first and foremost, check your eligibility. I am fortunate to be qualifying under Federal Skilled Workers Program.   And, based on my research, this is the most popular among the three. 

If you qualify, congratulations!   We must understand, however, that immigration to Canada is not a right and is driven by economic / social need of the country.  Therefore, once you enter Express Entry "pool" - more on this in a moment - you must wait for an Invitation to Apply (ITA).   

ITAs are managed through bi-weekly (roughly speaking) rounds of invitations to select top ranking candidates in the pool based on round's quota.   For example, if this week the quota of invitations is 3500, then top 3500 candidates in the pool will receive ITAs (there are tie breaking rules, but we don't need to worry about them at this stage). 

You are ranked based on Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS).  This is NOT the same as eligibility criteria for one of the three programs.  This ranking system is more comprehensive and largely designed to invite people that the government believes will most successfully settle in Canada. 

To understand where you stand, second step should be do get your estimated CRS score.  Note:  select No for Provincial Nomination and Job Letter (assuming, you don't have either at this time).  It is best to use this link which is the official government tool instead of those from third party.   Not only because the shifting score criteria can be represented most accurately by a government tool, but some third parties are immigration attorney offices and their tools are usually rigged to give you a more generous evaluation than what it should be.  This is obviously to lure more clients because their hefty fee is regardless of the outcome of your application! 

Once you get your score, compare that to lowest scores (cut-off) that got invitations in recent rounds.   The reason this step is critical is to make sure that you're spending your time, money and resources on the most important tasks to make your application successful.    

• If your score is above the recent cut-off, you are ready for the next step!  
• If it is on the borderline, i.e. 5-7 points lower than recent average cut-off, go ahead with the next step unless you can think of something that may be done in near future to increase your CRS score (about to finish a higher degree, better language results, additional year of experience, etc.).  
• But don't sweat too much because you may qualify for Provincial Nomination.  I will write a separate blog just for this, but generally speaking, each Province in Canada has certain specific demands (like tech experience, etc.) and to meet those they sift through Express Entry candidates and may send a Notification of Interest to some of them.  If you happen to receive one of them and ultimately through their SEPARATE application process gets accepted into a Provincial Nomination Program (PNP), you will get enough points to almost certainly receive an ITA in the next round!   I don't like to bet all my money on PNP and that is the reason at this time I won't go into it. 
• If your score is significantly lower than the recent cut-off (let's say more than 20), work more on increasing your score.  I like to be optimistic and won't discourage anyone from applying, however, relying solely on PNP rather than working to increase your CRS score may not be the best use of your time.  

CRS cut-off has been increasing in the past few months (late 2019s to early 2020s) for various reasons.  Therefore, don't get discouraged if you don't get ITA immediately after entering Express Entry. 

For folks whose score is either above or on the borderline of cut-off (like me), you are ready for the third step.  This is where you will develop a road map (or follow mine with caution risen out of its bespoke nature!) to get things going.  Next Blog on this!